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1This Crowded Earth

By Robert Bloch

Robert Bloch (1917 – 1994) was a prolific writer in many genres. As a young man he was encouraged by his mentor H. P. Lovecraft, and was a close friend of Stanley G. Weinbaum. Besides hundreds of short stories and novels he wrote a number of television and film scripts including several for the original Star Trek. In 1959 Bloch wrote the novel Psycho which Alfred Hitchcock adapted to film a year later. He received the Hugo Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and he is a past president of the Mystery Writers of America. Published in Amazing Stories in 1958, This Crowded Earth is a thriller set on an overpopulated Earth of the future. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)

Regina Miriam Bloch is a somewhat enigmatic figure in the world of Weird Fiction, having written only two slim volumes (The Swine-Gods and Other Visions and The Book of Strange Loves), yet her language and impact of writing style is unrivaled. The Swine-Gods and Other Visions is a haunting, at times grotesque, at times exuberant collection of strange and otherworldly fables, filled with pagan deities, bizarre allegorical parables and rich imagery unlike anything in print at the time. The dream worlds that Bloch creates, of priests sacrificing souls to boar-headed gods, of demons rising from witches' cauldrons, of mutilations and tortures, but also with a small measure of hope and appreciation for the musicality of Life, these visions are truly remarkable and worthy of experiencing. (Summary by Ben Tucker)

3Before Egypt

By Robert Bloch

It was Mallison's strangest assignment. The weird little professor wanted to go to Egypt. That meant a trip back to Earth so far as Mallison was concerned. But the professor pointed to a distant star and Mallison wondered: "Who moved Egypt?" - Summary by Amazing Stories January 1957

4Weird Tales Double Feature: The Salem Horror and The Black Kiss

By Robert Bloch and Henry Kuttner

We enter the dank corridors of gibbering horrors with this pair of depraved dwellings being investigated by Henry Kuttner's occultist creation Michael Leigh! In The Salem Horror, we bear witness to a ghastly witch curse born of the dread Cthulhu mythos that refuses to stay dead, and in The Black Kiss, where Kuttner was ably assisted by noted horror author Robert Bloch of Psycho fame, we are held in sway of a demented sea goddess whose cold, lifeless lips beckon us into the depths of the abyss forever! - Summary by Ben Tucker